A Time Traveling character encounters themself in the future or the past, and hurts or even kills themself. Of course, this leads to all sorts of disastrous effects:
There are several reasons this could happen:
- A time-traveling character goes back in time to stop the past version of themself from bringing about disaster, hoping that the horrible event that happens in the future — should the character be directly responsible for it — and thus Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
- The character, after discovering time travel, finds that their future self has undergone a Face–Heel Turn or has become a Fallen Hero. Now, it's up to them to stop themself.
This often leads to:
- An existential crisis: Discovering a divergent version of oneself can provoke an existential crisis, forcing the character to confront uncomfortable truths about their own nature and potential futures. This internal conflict adds layers of emotional depth to the narrative as the character grapples with the implications of their choices.
- Moral dilemmas: In scenarios where the future self has become corrupted or villainous, the character must wrestle with moral dilemmas regarding the nature of identity and personal responsibility. Is the future self truly a reflection of who they are destined to become, or is there still a way to choose a different path?
- A battle of wills: The confrontation between past and future selves often escalates into a battle of wills, with each version of the character vying for control of their shared destiny. This conflict can manifest both physically and psychologically, as the characters fight not only with weapons but also with words and ideologies.
- Temporal Ripples: The outcome of the conflict between past and future selves can have far-reaching consequences, sending ripples through the fabric of spacetime. Changes made in the past can dramatically alter the course of history, creating alternate timelines or paradoxical loops that defy rational explanation.
Sub-Trope of My Future Self and Me.
Compare Temporal Suicide, Future Me Scares Me, I Hate Past Me, and Mirror Match.
Contrast Help Yourself in the Future.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Super: In the "Future" Trunks Saga, after being beaten by the Big Bad Future Trunks is sitting outside sulking, thinking about how he ran away without Future Mai, again. Trunks watching his future counterpart, approaches him, and berates him for moping around after one loss. Future Trunks politely asks Trunks to leave him alone, prompting Trunks to call Future Trunks a coward and he is unable to protect Future Mai that way. Trunks then asks him if he is mad, and challenges him to a fight, turning into a Super Saiyan. When Future Trunks does not move, Trunks agrees to make the first move and punches Future Trunks in the face, knocking him down. Trunks yells at Future Trunks to stand up since he "is supposed to be a Saiyan". Future Trunks and Trunks start fighting, but stop when Future Trunks realizes what Trunks is trying to teach him: win, no matter who the enemy is and Future Trunks thanks his younger self while shaking his hand.
- EDENS ZERO: The Lendard arc reveals one of the story's major villains to be the future self of The Hero Shiki, who was blasted 20,000 years forward in time and rebuilt as a robot in an alternate timeline, becoming Demon King Ziggy, his own adoptive grandfather. In a tragic twist, Ziggy only turned evil when the true Big Bad took control of him, and Shiki is forced to destroy him to free him for good.
- Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: In the final episode of the first season, Scott Pilgrim is forced to fight Even Older Scott when the latter's plan to prevent his past self from being with Ramona fails.
Comic Books
- The plot of The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect features the Hulk being brought into a Bad Future by Rick Jones's granddaughter, Janis, to help their rebellion overthrow the Maestro, a tyrant who turned out to be the Hulk himself. Naturally, Bruce doesn't take well to this news.
- The Transformers (Marvel): Galvatron travels back in time and meets his past self Megatron on several occasions, but they often end up fighting. One time it's because Megatron refuses to hand command of the Decepticons over to Galvatron, on another it's because Megatron has been brainwashed to destroy Galvatron, and on still another it's because Galvatron has simply gone insane.
- One What If? story featured an alternate universe where the Young Avengers were all recruited from children of the criminal enterprise called the Pride (who, in the normal timeline, became the Runaways). They were assembled by Iron Lad, supposedly a younger version of Kang the Conqueror, to fight the villain Victorious. It later turned out that the Iron Lad of this universe was Victorious' teenage self, Victor Mancha, who wanted to prevent the future where he became a villain.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: Prevented in one arc where Calvin doesn't feel like doing an assignment at 6:30, so he travels with Hobbes two hours later into the future to pick it up. Except that of course it isn't done, because 8:30 Calvin expected it to be done by his past self. So they travel to 7:30, threaten to beat that Calvin up, but as he points out, 8:30 Calvin will get hurt too. In the end, everyone returns to their own time with an assignment written by both Hobbeses that makes Calvin look like a lunatic since it describes how the writing assignment came to be.
Films — Animation
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Rex Dangervest was actually a version of the protagonist Emmet who didn't get to save his friends from Bianca. In order to maintain his existence, he has to ruin the relationship between Finn and Bianca, and defeat his past self. Making sure that Emmet ends up lost under the dryer forgotten by his friends.
Films — Live-Action
- Avengers: Endgame:
- The team's plan to steal the Infinity Stones from the past brings Nebula face to face with her 2014 self, who is not happy about her future Heel Face Turn. 2023-Nebula is eventually forced to kill her past self to save her friends.
- The film also has 2012 Captain America and 2023 Captain America fighting after the former catches the latter trying to take Loki's scepter.
2012 Captain America: I can do this all day.
2023 Captain America: Yeah, I know... I know...
- Looper: The movie revolves around Joe trying to hunt down his future self, who has arrived in his time to find and kill someone who will become a mass murderer known as the Rainmaker. At the end of the movie, Joe realizes that Old Joe's attempt to kill Cid as a child only results in a Stable Time Loop that will traumatize the boy into becoming the Rainmaker. As a result, he chooses to Take a Third Option, and despite previously only wanting to "close the loop", kill his future self, and retire as a hitman, chooses to commit suicide instead, sacrificing himself to stop Old Joe and the original timeline from forming.
- Men in Black 3: When Boris the Animal travels back to 1969, he gets into an argument as to who was responsible for getting captured by Kay, past Boris for getting captured or future Boris for being the one that got captured.
- Tenet: the unnamed protagonist is at Oslo Airport when a mysterious inverted figure emerges from a "turnstile" (an entropy-inverting device) and attacks him. Later, the protagonist and Neil are forced to return to Oslo Airport to use the same turnstile to un-invert — and while there, the protagonist runs into his past self, who (from his inverted perspective) attacks him, leading to the exact same fight playing out backwards until he's able to reach the turnstile
Literature
- Franny K. Stein: During the climax of "The Fran That Time Forgot", the title protagonist faces off against her teenage self in a Bad Future wrought on by her Embarrassing Middle Name being changed.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Discussed. When Harry and Hermione travel back 3 hours, Hermione warns Harry — among other issues — that some wizards have killed their past or future selves while time-travelling.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: In "The Ultimate Foe", it is revealed that the Valeyard, who had been serving as prosecutor in the Doctor's trial for the last twelve episodes, is actually an amalgamation of the darker side of the Doctor's nature from "somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnations". The Valeyard had made a deal to frame the Doctor for illegal actions taken by the Time Lord High Council, in exchange for receiving the Doctor's remaining regenerations.
- Kamen Rider Zi-O: The premise of the season is that Geiz and Tsukuyomi have come to the past to stop Sougo Tokiwa from becoming the future tyrant Oma Zi-O. At one point, Tsukuyomi takes Sougo to the Bad Future, upon which he attacks his Future Self in an effort to defeat him. However, Oma is able to use the powers of the one Rider whose Ridewatch Souma hadn't secured yet: Kamen Rider Drive. A Curb-Stomp Battle follows.
- Red Dwarf: In "Out of Time", upon discovering that the crew's future selves see no issue with dining with figures such as the Hitler family, Lister threatens them off Starbug with a Bazookoid, refusing to give them the data needed to fix their Time Drive. For this, their future selves try to destroy them, and the past crew attempt to fight back. Unfortunately, this does not go well for the past crew, as their future counterparts are heavily armed, and the past crew is killed, with only the reveal in "Tikka to Ride" that the future crew killing their past selves would be a paradox saving them.
Tabletop Games
- Sentinels of the Multiverse: The hero Omnitron-X is actually the future version of the villain Omnitron who has turned good. He travels back in time to the present day to prevent the destruction his villainous past self has caused.
- Warhammer 40,000: One ork warboss accidentally fought himself due to emerging from the Warp shortly before he entered it. Being a noted kleptomaniac, his fleet immediately attacked and he killed his past self so as to have two of his favorite gun.
Video Games
- Guild Wars 2: During the personal story, an Asura character who picked the Infinity Ball as a "first invention" will end up fighting an alternate-future version of themselves when they try again to get the Ball to work. The future self is from a Bad Future (said future self is a dictator/conqueror who "out-Inquests the Inquest"), and defeating the future self means that future won't come to pass.
- Guilty Gear XX: In several of the story routes, Sol Badguy ends up fighting his past self, Order-Sol, by way of I-No's time travelling trolling.
- Infamous: The Big Bad Kessler is none other than a version of Cole from a Bad Future taken over by The Beast. The whole game was an attempt to empower Cole so he could prevent this... unless you take the Evil Path of the sequel, where this is All for Nothing because Cole becomes The Beast.
- Legacy of Kain: Being a series that heavily features themes of destiny and fate, as well as time travel, this occurs twice each from opposite perspectives.
- Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain: One of the obstacles placed in Kain's path when he confronts Moebius the Timestreamer, is his own future incarnation. Whether or not this actually is a version of himself from a possible future, or just an illusion conjured by the ever-deceitful Time Guardian, is never addressed.
- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2: At the end of the story, Raziel confronts and kills his former comrades while in the past when they were Sarafan knights, in retribution for their merciless killing of Janos Audron, with his final target being none other than his past self, who delivered the killing blow, facilitating their eventual revival as vampires by Kain to serve as his lieutenants. Fittingly, the battleground the Raziel's duel upon has a carving of an Ouroboros.
- Mortal Kombat 11: Due to Kronika's manipulations, many of the characters in the game's time-frame end up fighting their past/future selves:
- The past versions of Liu Kang and Kung Lao face their Revenant present selves in "Chapter 3: Shaolin Monks".
- Johnny Cage in "Chapter 6: War on the Homefront" faces his cocky, past self after the latter made an ill-advised comment about Sonya Blade in front of the former, who was mourning the death of Present-Sonya back in "Chapter 1: Next of Kin".
- "Chapter 9: All in the Family" has Past-Jax facing Present-Jax, who crossed the Despair Event Horizon by working for Kronika after the death of his wife and not being able to communicate with Jacqui.
- "Chapter 10: To Hell and Back" has Present-Scorpion facing his past, vengeful self, after seeing Past-Scorpion allied with Sub-Zero.
Visual Novels
- Fate/stay night: Archer's true identity is that of Shirou Emiya from an alternate timeline from that of any of the Fate/stay night routes who made a contract with the world and became the Heroic Spirit EMIYA. He acts as a Counter Guardian for the world as payment for the contract. However the "World" ironically gave him the duty as a Heroic Spirit "to slaughter all humans at a particular location when mankind is at the threshold of complete self-destruction". After seeing human self-destruction and being forced to oppose his own ideal of saving people countless times, he began to deny himself and his ideal and even views his past self as horribly naive and ridiculously idealistic. Archer desperately came to believe that his only hope of release was to have himself summoned into an era where Shirou Emiya exists and kill his past self, hoping that the double paradox created by Shirou Emiya being killed before having a chance to make the contract with Alaya and that the killing was done by a Shirou Emiya who successfully made the contract with the world would create a time paradox great enough in magnitude that could potentially erase his existence as a Counter Guardian. None of this is made clear in the Fate route, where Archer is merely a mysterious swordsman whom present-day Shirou can't get along with, but forms the main premise of Unlimited Blade Works and leads to a battle between the two when Shirou swears to uphold his ideal in spite of the impossibility of saving everyone.
Webcomic
- Sluggy Freelance: On Bun-bun's second excursion in Timeless Space, he remembers little except that he managed to escape before. When he encounters his younger counterpart, he therefore takes a position on the same ship to tag along with him in disguise. Unfortunately, he can't stand his own company and ends up beating his younger self up before they make it back to their respective times... giving him amnesia.
Western Animation
- Danny Phantom: Dark Danny, the main antagonist of "The Ultimate Enemy", is an evil future version of Danny Phantom from an alternate timeline, and is the result of a fusion between Danny's ghost half and Vlad Master's. Clockwork set in motion a series of events that led young Danny to eventually come to the future, where he encountered his dark older self. They fought, but Dark Danny easily won, trapping Danny in the future while Dark went to the past to murder the Fentons, Sam, Tucker, and Lancer, in an effort to preserve his existence. Danny would later return from the future in a Big Damn Heroes moment for a rematch but even with the aid of the Specter Deflector and the Ghost Gauntlets, Dark Danny still proved too much for Danny but did not kill him as his own existence was at stake. Dark Danny mocked Danny for being powerless against him and for promising to protect his friends and family refusing to let down his friends and family, Danny unleashed his new Ghostly Wail. Dark Danny was shocked, as he himself didn't develop that power for another ten years. Danny took advantage of Dark Danny's surprise to unleash another Ghostly Wail, weakening Dark Danny enough for Danny to trap him in the Fenton Thermos.
- The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants: After an entire season of partnering with his future self, Melvin Sneedly rebels against him after he realizes not only was he incompetent; causing many of their problems, but also attempts to leave George and Harold for dead to be eaten by nanobots. Melvin says to his future self's face he will never become him, which causes future Melvin to cease to exist.
- Gargoyles: Demona travels back in time to try to convince her younger self to turn evil sooner. The younger, un-corrupted Demona is horrified by her future self.
Old Demona: I have no desire to hurt you.
Young Demona: And I have no desire to be you. - The Patrick Star Show: In "Tying the Klop-Knot", Patrick goes back in time to eat his parents' wedding cake, leading him and Squidina to have to set up a new one. Right as the ceremony is about to be completed, Patrick finds himself tempted by the cake and rushes towards it, only to be blocked off by his future self, who has come to prevent him from eating the cake... because he wants to eat it himself. Patrick battles his future self over who gets to eat the cake. Squidina fears the wedding is ruined, but it turns out the "Battle of the Time-Traveling Children" is one of the many insane wedding traditions from her mother's culture, so everything works out.
- Steven Universe: In "Steven and the Stevens", Steven gets his hands on a time travel artifact and uses it to recruit past versions of himself to form a rock band. Soon, he finds himself kicked out of the band due to creative differences and realizes that he finds his past selves really irritating, so winds up going further and further back in time to stop himself from recruiting himself, eventually winding in an all-out brawl with dozens of his past selves at the exact point in the past that he discovered the time artifact. He convinces his past self not to use the artifact, removing himself and all his duplicates from the timeline.
